Snake Girl

by Andrew L. Wilson

When she was a little girl her father’d take her on his road carnival show attraction. Don’t know quite what it was, but there were snakes.

These big boas from Africa. He’d handle the snakes and charm them with flute music and give little lectures and demonstrations.

Then he’d sell a charm potion that was guaranteed to do certain things, some of them sexual.

He’d drape his little girl in big snakes and she’d walk around in the audience letting people touch them.

There she’d be wearing a ton of snakes and smiling a little with her eyes half shut and all the people, especially men and boys, touching and petting the snakes. And lord she’d tremble. For it felt sweet sometimes. As if they were touching her naked skin.

Lord Jesus, she’d pray at nights, swallowing the tears, I feel so ashamed. But the snakes and the touching part by firelight gave her such joy that it left her empty. And her father sold all his potions. Sold out of everything.

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Andrew L. Wilson is the author of many short stories, parables, essays, poems, and aphorisms published in innumerable small magazines, on Web sites and in other venues. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he does Zen and plays the shakuhachi flute. See http://www.alwwriting.blogspot.com.